We were sitting on the living room floor. She had just unwrapped the handcrafted silk scarf I bought her in a remote Bavarian Village.

I had realized, racing that test-drive BMW Z-3, (not yet released in the States) through those Alpine peaks, that my marriage was dead. Not foully murdered. No blood. No viciousness. Just — like that famed Norwegian Blue parrot of Monty Python fame, standing only because it had been nailed to its perch; this marriage had ceased to be. Had expired and gone to meet its maker. This was an ex marriage.

So being the dutiful husband and father of two small boys that I was, I bought her a beautiful gift and came home to suggest that we sell our house and travel around the world – in other words – resurrect ourselves, find a way to make it work.

She, not so amazingly, had come to the same conclusion while I was away: marriage. Dead.

She wanted a 6-month break to discover herself as just herself, not as my wife, and not as a “mom.”

“Well,” I said, well entrenched in my “ordinary world” of good husband/good father, “if you want to go to a Buddhist monastery and meditate for 6 months, I’ll support you. But if you want to sleep with other guys, that’s a divorce.”

“I’ve never slept with another man. I want to experience that.”

“Well, I haven’t slept with another man,” I said. “You don’t see me complaining.”

She didn’t laugh.

I got it. She was dying inside. She had lost track of who she was. We had married out of college. Her father was powerful. I had been powerful (then). She didn’t know what she was anymore, outside of being defined by the men in her life, including our two little men sleeping in the next room.

That moment… was the lightning strike of my rebirth as a man. Her decisiveness allowed me to admit what I didn’t want to admit – how drained and hopeless I felt inside in this marriage. How what seemed, at 23, like a promising and grand project was never going to be a true partnership of minds and souls.

A distant voice – ancient, terrifying, thrilling – called from a distant shore. Like a horn blast. A death rattle. A siren’s call.

Everything was about to change.

I wanted this. And I didn’t want it. My body craved it. My “identity” however, recoiled in shame and terror.

Who would I be as “not father/not husband?”

Where would I go?

What lay before me?

YOU WILL BE CALLED TO ADVENTURE

As a man, you will be called to adventure.

It might arrive as a sucker punch, but come it will.

The Call will shake you out of stasis. Out of settling. Out of being a pussy cowering in the corner of the Thunderdome of life.

And, like me, like all men, your body will thrill to the tingle of possibilities unfolding before you. And, like all men, you will resist that call.

And THAT… is when the true adventure of your heroic journey begins.

Joseph Campbell laid it out for us. He elucidated what he called “the monomyth” – the ONE story that runs through EVERY story in every culture throughout mankind.

The adventure finds a man (usually) in his “familiar world.” He is dutiful but he is unfulfilled. He is Luke Skywalker scavenging droids on a desert planet full of vertical shih-tzus in bathrobes.

The hero is then called to adventure – often shockingly – as when Luke’s uncle and aunt are char-broiled by the Empire.

The hero then meets a mentor – Obi, Han Solo, then Yoda – crosses into a dangerous world full of allies and enemies (often it’s a dark forest).

The hero, along the way, gathers up “magical” weapons (e.g. light saber, invisibility cloaks) – which are metaphors for wisdom.

Then the hero has to face a great ordeal – fight a dragon, representing his deepest fear – die and get resurrected, slay the dragon, grab the treasure and here’s the crucial part – return home with the treasure, or magic elixir (representing Great Wisdom, his fulfilled and embodied heroic nature) and heal the land from which he came.

You are the hero of your own journey – that, or you end up a mere sidekick, an extra, vegetable-matter, a throwaway. A shadow of the man you could have been.

You either CHOOSE to heed the call to adventure and launch yourself into the dark unknown – or you wither away to become a cubicle man, a blob, a bar-code, what Eliot described as “The Hollow Men.” The opening lines of his poem by that name should keep you up at night…

“We are the hollow men?
We are the stuffed men?
Leaning together?
Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!?
Our dried voices, when?
We whisper together?
Are quiet and meaningless?
As wind in dry grass?
Or rats’ feet over broken glass?
In our dry cellar? ?
Shape without form, shade without colour,?
Paralysed force, gesture without motion”

Do you know men like this — “paralysed force, gesture without motion?” – going nowhere but back and forth from their soul-death jobs to the TV to the bar to the job and rinse and repeat until only the grave breaks the monotony?

These are the men Tyler Durden had to wake up with his spasms of violence.

These are the men that Eliot elsewhere described as so weak, they “measure their lives in coffee spoons,” wonder if they “dare to disturb the universe” — and in a pitiless, dim echo of brave Ulysses upon the wine-dark sea, meekly wonder…

“Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?
I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.
I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each.
I do not think that they will sing to me.”

The mermaids are singing to you, my friend.

They are singing to you right now.

What are you doing about it?

Right now?

THE JOURNEY IS YOU

The beautiful, sensual, writhing, wise, radiant, pliant, mischievous liquiform women of the world are singing to you.

Do you dare hear them?

They are tempting you to brave their whirlpooled shores – to see you if you will paddle off, tail between your legs (like most men), or if you will collapse and sink mid-effort (like many men), or if you will ennoble yourself – and them – by rising to your heroic best – throw yourself boldly into their feminine maelstroms, take a deep breath and, swirling, swirling, join their blazingly erotic song of life.

Women are calling you.

Their voice is bewitching. Beguiling. It sends a temblor down your spine and a tongue of fire through your veins.

It is about your being called out of stasis and fear and hesitancy and indirection and manipulation.

The “Heroic Journey” structure is universal because it is OUR universal story.

It is like a grand, living “Mario Brothers” screen where you leap to higher and higher plateaus.

So let me ask you a question…

Where is your “plateau” right now with women?

Where do you hesitate? Where do you hide in shadows?

Where do you not let the boldness of your true heart shine? Where do you hold back your love for fear it can be popped like a balloon, when in fact it is a undepletable, rushing river?

Where do you not lead women past their own fears and hesitancies for fear of their rejection, as if one woman’s momentary closure can dam your warrior’s inheritance?

Where have you settled for merely “f*cking,” when women yearn to be ravished open to dissolution, to bliss, to fullness and filledness.

The mermaids are calling you. Are you answering?

As a teacher of over 50,000 men who stand ready to fortify their spine, open their heart and approach, connect with and inspire women, I’ve heard it all. I’ve heard men complain about dating, that its too hard, that the women are bitchy or too picky or only want male models or millionaires, or that online dating sucks or that girls don’t know what they want…. and all I hear in this are “mouths full of straw …dried voices… whispering together… quiet and meaningless.”

You cannot hear the mermaids singing when your ears are full of your own complaints and excuses.

You can’t set sail and catch the wind of life if you resist the call over and over, in a hundred pallid ways.

YOUR DATING LIFE IS YOUR HEROIC ADVENTURE…

… should you, like Ethan Hunt, choose to accept it. How you date can be the forge of your manhood, of your spine, of your destiny.

When I sat there on my living room floor with my then wife, I was a ball of terror. Would she find some amazing wealthy man who would endear himself to my children? Would I be “that” guy living in a shitty apartment impoverished by alimony until the grave? “That” guy who only saw his kids on weekends? “That” guy, hair thinning, stomach bloating, haunting the shadows of wine bars and hotel lobbies, stalking the wounded stragglers of middle aged women herds? Would my beautiful sons grow distant? Would I drift and drift and drift away from this home I had rebuilt with my own hands…. and simply vanish? Unseen. Unimportant. Unloved?

And worst of all – I sat there wondering if any woman would ever date me? Mid life. Balding. A bit heavy. Broke from divorce. A guy who “lost his family.”

Yet, the next morning, I was at the courthouse, filing for divorce.

And guess what?

On that long line to the little clerk’s window, the woman behind me tapped me on the shoulder. “What?” I snapped, maybe too sharply.

“Do you realize,” she said, “that you are singing at the top of your lungs?”

I didn’t even know I was singing at all.

But something deep inside me was answering the mermaids.

In the dating world, you answer the mermaids by learning to live full-throttle and communicate your truth boldly.

I have been on an extraordinary hero’s journey this past decade…

I crossed a threshold into the unknown world of dating fearing rejection and invisibility.

I found my “wise mentors” – I read everything on male-female dynamics, sought the authors, found workshop leaders, aligned myself with David Deida (who I worked with for 2 years), and hounded shamans and scalawags, rakes and rabbis, sages and seducers, barflies and black-belts for every crumb of wisdom I could shake from them.

I learned how to approach beautiful women boldly. To flirt without shame or hiding my erotic self or sexual intentions. I learned – by trial and error – how to lead, directly and without subterfuge, a woman from the spark of that first encounter on a playful and unmistakable path into sexual adventure and connection.

I gathered “magical weapons” – patterns of unmasking and “presencing” – conversational techniques that skip the small talk and kill “the friend zone” before it even has a chance to be born. I learned how to dress. How to hold my body, to take up space like I deserved it. I learned approach skills. Infallible flirtation games. Rapport skills. The ability – eventually – to speak truth brashly and boldly. And every woman/ally on my journey handed me a magic talisman of wisdom. Or two. Or a hundred.

I battled “enemies” – mostly my own ego which sought to “get” from women rather than to boldly “give” great and authentic experiences, unattached to outcome (I often lost these battles).

I faced the “dragon” of my own self-worth many times but, snicker-snak, relentlessly, with my vorpled sword I slew self-doubt, slew “smallness,” slew “neediness” – each time, returning with just a little more of the elixir of a healthier self, a healthier love of women, a healthier ability to connect with women at the levels of both play and depth, and most importantly – with a deeper draught of my own freedom.

The True Victory Of The Dating Journey

And through it all, through writing and teaching and coaching men around the world, I have found that the true victory on the heroic journey of dating cannot be measured in bedpost notches (much as I’ve enjoyed my notching)…

The true victory is in the boldness of thought, speech, touch and offering, is the resultant self-sovereignty, the expansive fearlessness and the buoyant confidence that living dating as a “heroic journey” gives you.

It’s a far sight better prize rather than the needy, bumbling, scattershot stumbling that most men settle for as they go “after” women – rather than standing proudly before them – and inviting them into adventure.

Non-heroes treat the dating journey as a carnival ring-toss game of “hope.” They throw their money down. They fling their little hoops and try to get “lucky.”

Heroes treat their dating life like the heroic journeys they actually are – adventures of self-discovery and self-refinement, of striving and self-development, of facing down fears, dying little deaths over and over again only to be resurrected anew and grabbing the ultimate treasure…

… and thereby growing to the next level up of manhood: proud, scarred, wiser and able to give their true mental, physical, sexual, social and spiritual gifts to themselves, to women and to the world at an entirely new level.?

In fact, do you want to be the kind of man who pleases them so much that YOU are the man whose bed they want to come back to over and over again?

BUT…

Are you also someone who does not ever really feel confident that he knows exactly WHAT it is that women really want from a man in bed?

If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, then I’ve got two things to tell you:

One, you are NOT alone,

(cause these are some of the most COMMON things I hear from the guys I’ve coached over the last 11 years) and Two, YOU are the guy who CAN and WILL be able to make women feel amazing and incredible in bed!

So let me give you some of the KEY and TOP tips that will IMMEDIATELY make you create amazing passion and desire for you in any woman you have in your bed.

So let’s say you’re dating a woman now whose only sexual experiences have been with men that are “pump and dumpers.”

For those of you who don’t know what a pump and dumper is — they are who I call “minutemen.”

I am not talking about minutemen from the Revolutionary War…

These “minutemen” guys get in, they thrust their hips, they pump a few times, and then they dump all their little men (all their little “sea-men” to swim all over the place). A lot of women who are young (and some unfortunately who are older) have only been with “pump and dumpers,” and they have no idea of how unbelievably amazing sex can be with an attentive, sexually aware man. They don’t know sex and foreplay start right inside a woman’s mind.

So let’s say you’ve done it all right. You’ve started sex and foreplay by seducing her mind and you have her all turned on. I know you may be thinking, “OK, David, that’s GREAT… so what EXACTLY DO we do?”

Good question.

How do you encourage this woman – who is basically very submissive in bed due to the fact that all of her experience is with Mr. “Pump and Dump?”

First a little insight into this woman’s mindset…

The reason why she is submissive, much of the time, is that she has never explored her own sexuality. A lot of women that have had “pump and dumpers” don’t know what they want sexually, and they are usually women who have never masturbated. They don’t know what feels good and what doesn’t. So how DO you encourage this woman to open up to her own sexuality?

Here are some of the TOP TECHNIQUES you can and should use to create maximum desire for you in bed:

DESIRE-CREATING TIP #1

First of all, this woman may or may not have ever had an orgasm before.

>>Tip: I would assume that she never has. She thinks she might be having an orgasm – it might be a momentary wave – but she is not having a full-blown orgasm.

If you ask her if she’s had an orgasm, and she says, “I think so” – then you have your answer. There is no “I think so” when it comes down to orgasms. Either you’ve had one or you haven’t!

If a woman will tell you that she thinks she had an orgasm, it means that she has probably only experienced a little wave of pleasure and not a full orgasmic experience.

DESIRE-CREATING TIP #2

So let’s assume that she’s never had an orgasm. You’ve got to become the teacher in this relationship. She is probably the type of woman who just expects you to do whatever you want to do, and she’ll just lie there submissively. So YOU need to show her slowly how amazing sex is.

I would take some extra time and give her a full body massage. I would spend extra time kissing her and just touching her, everywhere except in her breast and her groin area. I would take extra time when I go down on her and not only lick her, but to also touch all parts of her body also at the same time. I would also slip one finger inside as I was licking her in order to give her a different experience. I wouldn’t ask her if she is coming. I would just continually do all the things that I know bring pleasure to a woman, and I would ask her,

“How does that feel for you? Are you enjoying this? How do you like the pressure? I want to please you and I want to make you feel amazing.”

Don’t say, “I want to give you an orgasm.” Don’t tell her you want her to scream and yell.

Just say, “I want to make you feel wonderful. Okay?”

DESIRE-CREATING TIP #3

Then take your time. Allow her to open up and allow her to see sex in an entirely different light. Don’t expect the magical orgasm right away. Don’t expect her to open up immediately. Your only job is to show her – through a soothing, relaxing, attentive sexual session – just how great sex can be.

DESIRE-CREATING TIP #4

Another way to do it, too, is when you’re having sex with her, is to do the opposite of what the “pump and dumpers” have done. Hold her really close to you so she can feel the tightness and feel the sensuality of sex, and then grind in very slowly as you pull her close to you. That way your pubic bone is actually massaging her clit at the same time. By doing that and staying deep inside her, you’re going to give her feelings that she has not had before and you’re going to get her to open up. You may actually get her to start having a clitoral orgasm that way, in time. You are also going to show her a different side of sex, going to show her the sensuality of sex so that she can feel protected, warm, and nurtured during the experience.

Right now, all she feels is used. All she feels is that guys want to get inside, get off, and leave. So you’ve got to deal with the fact that she was with Mr. P & D. You’ve got to be tender and warm, and you’ve got to put absolutely no pressure on her at all. By following these simple steps and tips, you’re going to make her feel really comfortable, and you’re going to be able to get her to explore herself even more. She’ll surrender herself to you, in time, but you need to be very patient – because the other guys, the Mr. P & Ds, were not patient. It’s your turn to be patient now.

There are two kinds of men in the world today, and I want you to meet them … because you’re probably one of them. Actually, you’re probably both, to a degree, but you are definitely more one than the other. Each of these two guys is single, intelligent, and generally a ‘nice’ guy.

What they do have is widely disparate ATTITUDES toward life. Allow me illustrate:

—

Bob is just an average guy. He goes to work, comes home, eats dinner. He hangs out with friends at happy hour from time to time. He generally hopes that good things will happen to him.

But Bob is passive. He doesn’t seek out ways to take charge and influence his world. Bob is too concerned with protecting his image of himself.

He goes out and meets women on occasion, but he finds the same pattern evolving: He meets a gal every once in a while, usually by luck. He’ll ask and get her number from her. He’ll call a day or two later, and usually get an answering machine. She never calls him back, and he ends up calling several times before he finally gets hold of her. She’s usually polite, and he’ll muster up the courage to ask for a date. She agrees, but when the day comes for them to meet up, she calls him and says she can’t make it. Or she stands him up. Bob then looks at this as being yet another reason women are unreliable, and he starts to get self-righteous. He’s doing everything right, and THEY are acting all weird. It must be them, he figures.

And his passivity increases. Why bother trying if you just get shot down every time?

—

Dave on the other hand is average, too. But he rises above the average because of his attitude: Dave is active about his life. He takes the wheel of his life and steers it where he wants to go. He knows that if life isn’t going the way he wants it, he has the power to make it happen himself.

He doesn’t sit back expecting his abilities with women to succeed; he actively seeks out opportunities to try and learn from his interactions. When he fails in a seduction, he looks back on what he could do differently, not scared that making a mistake means he’s unworthy as a man.

Dave understands that when a woman acts a certain way, it is usually something he could influence with his approach and attitude. While her rejections do not mean anything to his worth, he does know that he can change his approach and learn to decrease those rejections. The answer isn’t finding just the right woman as it is understanding what parts of him he can develop and present to get more women interested.

Dave seeks out information and guidance to learn and improve. He doesn’t let life happen TO him, he makes it happen.

—

These two men demonstrate the kind of men who eventually get dates and get laid, or the ones that get stuck in the Downward Spiral, becoming more bitter and avoiding women.

The only man who isn’t worthy of a woman is the one who isn’t learning from his mistakes and trying again. He picks himself up, dusts himself off, and tries until he succeeds. He only fails when he fails to keep trying and learning from his attempts.

So which of these two would you rather be?

Notice, I didn’t ask you which of them you ARE. All of us have elements of both men.

And it doesn’t matter in the end, because I’m giving you an opportunity that other people will never offer you in life: You can stand at this crossroads and choose to settle for whatever results you’re currently getting with women, or you can choose to take the path of action. You can learn and improve with your strategy and get more women.

Or … Well, I think you know what lies down that road.

Don’t be the man sitting in front of the wood stove who says “Give me heat first, and THEN I’ll throw in the wood.”

No matter what anyone says in the moment, women want men they and other people admire. See this poor example from one online profile:

“I cannot really evaluate myself…I know what I want from life, and it depends on the next two years if I get it or not. So if you can accept that I hope that I will hear from you.”

Yikes! Really? You have no self-knowledge? This is man who is NOT in control of his life. H’es hanging by a thread. Dependent on the decisions of other men. He has zero masculine attraction. A lot of dating advisors tell men they need to display alpha tendencies. The truth is not every man is an “alpha male” – the leader of his group of peers. But he, you MUST be the leader of your own life. You MUST know your direction. You MUST know what you value. You MUST be self-reflective and be able to self-correct without defensiveness or embarrassment on a dime.

This above guy can’t even take the leadership position of evaluating his own life, much less living it! A child hopes. A man plans. A man acts. A man directs, adapts and steers. Inspiring hope is a great thing, especially if you’re running for office. But living off hope diminishes your masculinity and your appeal.

Language rule: replace any time you use the word “hope” with “plan” — it’s a clue to how serious you are about accomplishing anything in life. And how seriously women will take you. This above guy can’t articulate direction, internal power or the strength of an inner compass, which are — and as you will see this in later chapters — precisely the most IMPORTANT qualities women value in men!

Direction, purpose, high service inspires women to surrender to you, to trust you, to follow you. Whatever you want to call it — it both triggers their instantaneous attraction and inspires their enduring devotion.

So pull out any indication that

You don’t know yourself.

You are not living by your own lights

That you are dependent on others for your direction

That you feel powerless to create your life according to your deepest beliefs.

Women want to go on a ride with a man who is

fulfilled and seeking greater fulfillment. Who

is up to something important with his life.

So find any ways you are articulating loss of direction, confusion, hopelessness — anything that suggests you are not steering your life somewhere appealing.

Discovering where you put yourself down or communicate despondence in any way — this is a great opportunity to see where you need to make changes in your life!

Make those changes in your life. And begin by setting your honest intentions in your profile. Even if you feel that you are not in control of your destiny now, if you lay down your highest intentions, the way in which you plan to stand as a real man in this world who makes a difference — you may find just the woman who will be inspired by and support that vision — and help you make that happen.

“The battle is either won or lost before it begins.” That’s Sun Tzu – the brilliant, military strategist.

You’ve learned it from the best sports coaches – the game is won or lost before it begins.

From outstanding athletes, attorneys, political candidates – mental preparation and a commitment of the spirit to victory before the game, the trial, the election, will determine victory.

With this book, you are going to step into the arena anew…

Now it’s time to make an important mental shift. Are you ready?

There is a competition going on in this arena, yes. But you are not competing against women to “win” them. They are not “targets” in the crass, insecure language of some pick-up teachers. They are partners in your dance.

The only competition here is with yourself. It is to see if you defeat, or let go of your lesser self, and craft your best self.

And let women feel that best self. Light. Confident. Not needy. Happy. Giving.

Is that what they feel when they look at your profile?

One important clue to see if you are defeating yourself before you even begin is by examining how you array the signifiers with which you represent yourself.

The women at the other end of the fiber optic cable are not targets to “conquered,” but your allies in mutual joy and exploration. So drop the metaphors of conquest.

In this game, both you win and she wins if you play at the top of your game. Women want you – they YEARN FOR YOU – to be an awesome, attentive, strong, thoughtful, directive, aware guy that they rarely meet.

Offer her THAT, and victory is both of yours, to be shared deliciously.

I sat down with David Shade, America’s Renegade Sex Expert, to ask him one very important question about sex and a man’s role in the bedroom.

Adam: One foundation (to allow women to abandon themselves to the leadership of a man during sex) is about actually liking women. Do you want to say something about that? This is a very important mindset obviously.

David: Yeah, this is only going to work if you genuinely like women. We’re all attracted to women, but do you genuinely like women? Now there’s a lot of guys who are angry at women because their wife divorced them or the girl who wouldn’t go to the prom with them in high school or girls made fun of them. It’s not women. There’s nothing to be angry with and don’t blame other people.

So it’s not going to work unless you genuinely like women. In fact, it works when you genuinely believe in women. And it took me some time to genuinely understand women to the point where I really believed in them and I understand them.

Only then, only when you adore everything that defines a woman as a woman, only then can you be truly successful. And it’s the guys who are fascinated by women who are really successful with this stuff.

Watch this video I made for you and learn how to be confident with all types of women.

Now, again, saying Yes to the “all” is not some easy, new-agey surrender. Without getting into it here, because we couldn’t possibly explore it all, just remember this truth from Neitzsche,

“If a tree wants to reach to the sky, its roots

need to go to the very hell.”

So saying Yes to all means yes to ALL. That requires facing your deepest fears, your death, your darkest thoughts and desires, awful and unpleasant as they may be. As Jung famously said, what gets repressed, will get EXPRESSED. What you don’t want to face about yourself, or about humanity, or about death – will find another way to manifest in your personality. So you are better off – FAR better off – by being honest about your dark side, about embracing your totality – and rather than shrinking from what is, turning it into ART.

Tantra wants you to become an artist of life, using everything – every thought and part of your body – as material to reweave into the One. Tantra does not allow you to repress your true sexuality, and your true dark side within sexuality. It allows you to explore your sexual edges, with both the spice of danger and a whiff of transcendence and divine service.

Tantra teaches you to make art out of your life with ALL the colors available. Not just pink and lavender and pastel blues. It includes the raciest reds, inkiest blacks and the death-hue of blood. Tantra insists that you bring ALL of yourself to your partner, for example, in service of your mutual opening to the great YES to everything.

If you’re a guy over 40, you have double the dating pool. You can date your age or you can date younger.

So, with all these choices – and assuming that you’ve got your head on straight, your confidence in line, and your optimism working reliably, here are some tips that will get you ahead – both online and off-line, and especially also with younger women.

I can guarantee you, that if you are new on the dating scene, or if you have had bad luck until now, because you hadn’t acquired the kind of skills in my book –Instant Confidence with Women – you can and will succeed beyond your wildest dreams.

I am living proof of this, and I’ve seen it happen with men over and over and over again. In the realm of attraction and dating, practice does make perfect, or at least close to perfect.

Just keep at it. Do not give up. Learn your lessons. Note that you will be rejected from time to time. And get on with it, like a happy child who falls, brushes off his knees, and gets right back into the game.

We’re not talking warfare here, we are talking about having fun, meeting women, and experiencing life in all its joys and fullness. Promise me you won’t take yourself too seriously – and just get out there and use these tips and techniques, and have fun.

Today – I want to warn you about the phone. The phone for men is an extension of our business life, and we like to get business done. But for women, particularly younger women who simply don’t have that much on their plate yet, it is an extension of their social reality. They could talk to you for hours.

Avoid.

Remember – women are waiting for you to make their lives more fun.

Vet her before you meet. Go from online contact to maybe a short IM to the telephone and then quickly to a first meeting. The rule is, one or two IMs at best and get to the phone. Otherwise, you become a desexualized pen pal.

Once you’re on the phone, the trick is to keep the call short. So much sexual tension can be dissipated by phone when you don’t know each other. It happens way too often that you’re both being polite and essentially sexless on the phone.

And if you want to play a little edgy and sexy, it doesn’t always come across on the phone as fun and playful. It can come off as creepy. She doesn’t know you yet and she can’t see you, so you can’t really be your full self.

Sometimes of course, you will find a girl who is happy to play edgy and sexy on the phone, in which case, go with it.

So, with the caveat that you have to jump into a meeting soon but really wanted to “connect” with her, speak for a short while. It is a great idea to preface the call with this. “I’m so glad I got you. I have a call in 20 minutes, but I really wanted to connect.”

Women disclose a lot quickly. If she talks 90% of the time and doesn’t ask you a question, or seems self-doubting or overly aggressive or mean and bitter — you know you don’t need to meet, and you can cancel. You don’t have a lot of time to waste and you owe NOTHING to someone you haven’t met.

Use your online and phone contacts to weed out the unpromising ones. Bad dates with women who you feel ahead of time might be trouble, bitter, ball-busting etc. not only wastes your time – it also tends to get men down. It tends to give you the illusion that dating sucks or it’s hopeless.

Best to avoid a bad date altogether. Play the phone right, and you’ll save a lot of heartache, time AND money!

You are busy. You don’t feel like going through the routine of picking up, dinner, listening to her story, telling your story, spending a whole night of your precious time to figure out if you even want a second date.

One of the best dating tips I give for men especially over 40 is not to date!

If you’ re 40 plus, it’s likely that you’ve emerged from of a divorce or long-term relationship – there might be kids involved. Chances are there’s still a lot of hurt and anger boiling inside you and you’re not even sure what you want from that woman sitting opposite you – who is likely feeling the same mix of emotions.

And chances are, you are both projecting some of that onto each other because everything, for the moment, is riding on one person: that mug on the other side of the risotto.

(By the way, this goes for you if you haven’t been very successful with women in your life.)

But on the other hand, you don’t want to stay home and spiral into deeper loneliness. You want to get out and be with other men and women in fun, relaxed atmospheres – preferably without the pressure of “performing” on a date.

The idea at this stage of your life is to simply feel comfortable around women, and not to zero in on any one woman as the be all end all. You don’t need the “heat” of sex; what you really need is the warmth of feminine human contact.

The desire to throw yourself into sex, to throw yourself into a “rebound relationship” often salves the surface wound but it doesn’t treat the symptom – which is why rebound relationships feel GREAT at first – then come the tears, anger, resentment, tears, thrown bottles, letter bombs and anthrax scares.

You will be fooling yourself if you look to your too-early dates as solutions to your problems of loneliness, feeling that you’ve been let down or even that you’ve let yourself down.

This is why I so strongly recommend creating or joining fun social groups, often around outdoor activities, adventure travel, food and wine. Where spirits are high, people are relaxed, and you can feel valued for being the man you are, not “date material” with all those “datey” expectations foisted upon you.

The easiest way to do this is to go to www.Meetup.com and find a group that’s attractive to you.

You can’t reject it. In fact, you need to embrace it. You need to think of your old self – that awkward adolescent bumbler as well as the guy who screwed up something the day before yesterday – as your retarded little brother. With affection and tenderness.

Only then, will you be able to embrace the crucial idea that you can reboot your life as a blank slate.

I don’t care if you’ve been married or widowed or had your heart broken. If people can survive the holocaust and start families and raise healthy happy children, you can get over your past.

The first step is that you just have to DECIDE to do it.

You have to believe that a blank slate is possible. Most people cling to their old selves because they find safety in familiarity – even if familiarity sucks.

It’s why I never use the phrase “comfort zone”. Most people are not comfortable in their “familiarity zone” – they are just hiding from fear. And so they suffer their miserable lives away because they fear making a move out of the familiar.

What is that strategy? Usually it’s simply a servant of fear. It justifies stasis. It justifies life timidity. It justifies not making changes and owning what you truly want in life.

Leaving what is uncomfortably familiar is the realm of the hero.

It is an HEROIC act to make changes in your life. It is also the expression of your inner “magician” archetype – that part of you that won’t tolerate anything less that the best from yourself and boldly creates change.

Which is a hugely sexy expression of your masculine strength to women.

This is the man you want to be. This is the man the best women want you to be.

If you want to learn practical methods as to how to embody your hero and your magician archetypes, and dazzle women as well as yourself (!!!) — go here now…Instant Confidence with WOMEN.